


The Writings on the Wall are the Scars in my Skin

by BlazingStarInInkyBlackness



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Cutting, Self-Harm, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, a super cheerful start to a fandom..., all soulmate ideas in one universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 17:25:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4445261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlazingStarInInkyBlackness/pseuds/BlazingStarInInkyBlackness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where love is pre-destined there are many ways to tell who your soul mate is. But they got the most painful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Writings on the Wall are the Scars in my Skin

He hated his soulmate. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. It would kind of be counterproductive, not to mention impossible, to hate her. But he hated her all the same. She was just so fucking clumsy.

He wasn’t one of the lucky ones when it came to soulmates. He didn’t have her name etched into his wrist, didn’t have a timer slowly counting down until they would eventually meet. He didn’t even get her, no doubt beautiful, penmanship flowing across his body in her first words to him. He didn’t fall asleep to see her face. She did not appear in the side of his view, he couldn’t hear her voice as he sang, his imaginary friend was merely that; imaginary. It could have been worse, he reasoned, at least he wasn’t one of the kids born colour-blind, seeing the world in a pale imitation until the moment they set eyes upon their chosen other.

For a long time he didn’t think he had a soulmate, he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. But as he grew he began to notice more and more cuts and bruises he didn’t remember. He freaked his parents over it, dragging him to the doctor’s office fearing some terrible affliction.

But all the tests came back blank. The doctors shrugged, not particularly caring about the kid who happened to be covered in bruises. However one nurse noticed, passing a small discreet flyer into his hand and telling him to call the number if his dad got mad. He didn’t understand until he called it and child protection swarmed in.

It took less than ten minutes, from him calling the number to the police knocking on their door. His dad had been shouting at someone on the phone and his mother had been watching with a tight face, all too worried over her son’s medical health to comfort him in that moment. It took less than half an hour for his father to be brought to the police station, his mother shrieking at the police all the way. Less than an hour after the call and he was sat in a temporary foster home as a woman interviewed him. He broke down crying, terrified at what was going on.

He explained how the bruises came in the middle of the night and how he didn’t remember how he got them. By the end of the next hour his parents were locked up, awaiting trial and he was told firmly that he was safe. That evening, while he sat watching cartoons in a stranger’s house, he overheard from the old woman that sometimes soulmates were entwined by their bodies as well; bruises and cuts showing up as each mate yearned for the other over the great chasm of distance. It took a week for the child protection agency to call off the trial, releasing his parents with a great number of apologies. A week in which, somehow, his soulmate ended up with a black eye and a broken arm. Within an hour he was sat back at home, held tight in his mother’s grip as she comforted him. It took months for him to live down the embarrassment. It took years for him to find his soulmate.

 

In that time he began to get angry at the other person, bruises were a new constant in his life and cuts were not too far behind. When his soulmate broke her arm for the second time he’d had enough. He stormed into a tattoo parlour with the money he’d saved up and plonked himself into the chair. The tattoo hurt like fuck but he liked them. Maybe when he actually met his soulmate he’d get more. He left the shop admiring his arms with a smile; at the very least they covered some of the bruises.

 

One day he was lounging about in the heat of the Texas sun, sat with his friends as they tried to convince him to share some of the bottle grasped in his hands. He shook his head, downing the rest in one go. He sometimes wondered if his soulmate felt it, the burning as the liquid slipped down his throat. Maybe she got drunk too. Or he. It was complicated. Since he’d found out about his soulmate he’d had difficulty picturing a girl. As he grew into the young man he was it became even more difficult. Maybe a really kick ass girl, complete with tattoos and piercings but he wasn’t sure even that would be enough. It was bad enough that whenever he got drunk he tried to snog his mates face off, so he ignored it.

However he couldn’t ignore it as pain laced down his left arm. He yelped and dropped the bottle, pressed against his lips. He barely heard as one of his friends groaned at the loss of alcohol. Instead he ripped down his sleeve and stared as a row of red lines appeared, crossing his arm. He sucked in a deep breath as a new line opened up, this time leaking blood onto his arm. He leapt up, consumed with the need to protect, to help his soulmate. But there was nothing he could do apart from sit back down, watching as the red lines slowly faded, apart from the last one from which the flow of blood slowly stopped and began to sting like crazy instead.

It was uncommon to have his type of identification for his soulmate. Names, timers and first words were the most common, then the changes in eyesight. However coming up with marks was incredibly rare and so no one was quite sure what it meant. Across the world there were teams researching it but they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. He knew some ground rules though; the wounds weren’t identical but the pain was. If his soulmate broke her (his?) arm then he would be in agony but with no physical wounds to show for it. However, if his soulmate fell down a flight of stairs then they would both end up with bruises. Cuts seemed to be rarer, transferring more of the pain than the physical wound which was why he was so terrified about the cuts marking his arm.

What scared him the most was how straight and perfect the lines were. They were, by no stretch of the imagination, accidental. His soulmate had done them on purpose.

 

This continued for all too long, he would wake with a start to cuts, clinically decorating his skin. They began to get deeper and deeper and he began to wonder if he was actually ever going to meet his soulmate. He was so caught up in worrying he nearly didn’t notice when he finally did. He bumped, literally, into someone on the street. They both went crashing to the ground, hard. He groaned as he felt what would most definitely turn into a bruise.

As he stood up weakly he felt his arm flare up in agony and frowned. He hadn’t had time to throw his arm down to protect himself. The other man had though. The person he’d bumped into grumbled something and nearly ran off. He turned around, trying to make his brain work. He was fighting a hangover at the time, trying to mask it badly. But then his eyes caught the other man. He was hurrying down the nearly empty street, sunglasses obscuring his eyes and his left arm was clutched close to his side.

He didn’t think, he didn’t pause. He took off down the street at the other man and leapt in front of him. The guy was tall and broad, the beginnings of a ginger beard sticking out from underneath the sunglasses. The man froze, seeming to be afraid of being mugged or something. He glanced down the street, looking for a way out.

But the man who had just ran up to him just smiled, offering his hand, to apologise for knocking into him. He took the hand warily, shocked when his sleeve was ripped down to reveal the secret he’d kept for the last few years. He leapt back, ready to fight and was met with a chuckle.

“Thought so. The name’s Geoff. Geoff Ramsey.” The larger man eyed the other warily, something was obviously loose in his brain. No one just grabbed a stranger’s arm, saw the mess of scars and just introduced himself. But when he met the man’s eyes he paused.

“Jack. Jack Pattillo.”

“Well Jack, I think we need to have a conversation.”

“About what?” his voice was meant to be angry but it just came out curious, he knew full well that this was not a normal interaction.

“How about the fact that you have a killer hangover and you didn’t even drink last night? Or maybe that you broke your arm six years ago for the second time?”

“Who the hell are you? How do you know that?” Geoff laughed and Jack got ready to run, the man was clearly absolutely insane.

“Because I had the party of my life last night.” He rolled down his sleeve and Jack sucked in a breath, there on the skin were the same marks that he had. His scars were copied in a pale imitation on the other man’s skin. “Or maybe this.”

“Fuck me.” Breathed Jack, staring between the man and his arm. Geoff giggled, actually giggled which really, a nearly fully grown man had no right to be able to do.

“Let’s have that conversation first.”

FINIS

**Author's Note:**

> See you next time!


End file.
